Daily Deals for Moms: Zulily IPO Goes to the Moon

November 15, 2013 by Paul Ausick

Online shopping
Source: Thinkstock
E-commerce and daily deals website for moms Zulily Inc. (NASDAQ: ZU) sold 11.5 million Class A shares Friday morning in an initial public offering (IPO) that priced shares at $22, above the expected range of $18 to $20. Underwriters have an option on an additional 1.725 million shares.

Shares opened at just short of $39, more than 80% above the $22 IPO price.

Zulily is another of those companies that has adopted a dual stock structure. Class A and Class B shares are identical except that Class B shares are entitled to 10 votes per share compared with just one vote for Class A shares. Following the offering, Class B shares will represent about 99% of voting rights in the company.

This IPO comes just a week after the highly anticipated and hugely popular IPO from Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR). The demand for social media and Internet stocks reached a peak with the Twitter IPO, and Zulily is riding the coattails. Not a bad place to be, considering that Twitter’s shares are now trading nearly a full dollar below their closing price on the date of the IPO.

Of the Zulily shares being sold Friday, some 6.4 million are being offered by the company, and the other 5.1 million are being sold by existing shareholders. Venture capital firm Maveron and its co-founder Dan Levitan are selling 2.625 million shares. Maveron’s other co-founder is Howard Schultz, chairman, president and CEO of Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX).

Based on the IPO price, the firm will be valued at around $2.6 billion, and net proceeds to the company will be around $141 million. In its Form S-1 filing, Zulily said it will use the proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes. Its primary reason for issuing the stock is to create a public market for its Class A shares and thus to gain access to public equity markets.

Shares were trading at $39.20 in the late morning, up 75% after opening at $38.98 and peaking at $41.32.

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